i shall never die

Friday was not a bad day....
That is, until 10am when I went to my doctor's appointment for a full physical exam and to review the results of my blood tests.
On my way, I said a little prayer, something along the lines of, "Dear Lord, please let them find something in my blood to explain everything that's been going on with me." It's disgustingly funny how God answers prayers sometimes....right now it's the "funny" that really means ironic. i hope soon it will be "haha funny." It's just not that kind of funny...not yet.

And you know what else is funny? When you're told, "There were some things that came up in your blood tests that we need to talk about and follow up on, but we'll go over all that after your pap, so just relax." Yeah....relaxing was SO MUCH EASIER than it normally is when the doctor has your ankles spread on either side of your ears...

At least she let me put my clothes back on before she gave me the news. Even though, honestly, I checked myself out in the mirror and I was looking pretty hot in that paper hospital gown. You could totally tell I've been working out.

Then it was "sit down and talk like the grown up you really are" time. The grown up who will go home right after this and make yourself a turkey sandwich for lunch. The grown up who has laundry to do and a job. The grown up who pays bills and taxes. The grown up who goes to church on her own accord. The grown up who doesn't have time in her day to act like a little girl anymore.

I can't even pretend to paraphrase the exact speech she gave me. It wasn't half bad. Pretty much this is what I read between the lines of all the medical jargon:
"The stuff that's jacked up in your blood test is from this tiny thing you never would have thought about in your whole life except for this abnormal circumstance and that thing is called a Pituitary glad, a little pea sized gland in your brain. Yeah, even though you can't spell it, you should Google it because it is royally screwing with your life and allegedly the cause of all these hormonal things that have made you gain weight and stuff." Now, the lines I didn't have to read between were very clear: "Usually this is caused by a tumor." I could put two and two together to get the four most important words from our discussion: Pituitary. Brain. Tumor. Google.

Of course there were other important aspects of the conversation, such as:

"Usually not malignant."
"Not 100% certain"
"Just Highly Likely"
"No need to worry"
and
"CT Scan"

So, after my doctor's appointment, I did what any rational adult would do: called in sick for the rest of work, bought myself a chocolate malt (since I've been denying myself ice cream for nearly a year now) and went home to watch Little Women, so at least I had a viable excuse to be sitting at home with chocolate ice cream crying.

I had chalked all of Friday up to a loss: a day of mourning. A day to wallow. But those plans were cut short when my friend B_______ came over for pizza and a movie (and a glass of Chardonnay----yet another forbidden pleasure).

Saturday came with gray skies and thunder. But it was no matter. Saturday was a day in my life. Friday was over, a wasted day. I had given myself Friday to suffer fear and to cry. Saturday, it was time to get back to the land of the living. I went to the gym, I rented movies, I bought flannel sheets, I made beef stew, and I painted my bathroom green (then decided I hated the green and had a good fix-up project for next weekend).

So now, I continue to go forward as usual. It's not bothering me. Really. I don't like to think I have time to be bothered with such trivial things when I have a book club to keep up, a house that's never clean enough, coupons to clip and a puppy to train....oh and a job to qualify for.

There is nothing else to know until I get my CT Scan. And between now and whenever that will be, is my life.
So no, I'm not scared of this. I will live my life to the rhythm of the mantra of my generation: I am young. I am invincible. Nothing bad will happen....not to me....

I shall never die.